When to answer by CONCEPT in GMAT Data Sufficiency questions…
While it might be tempting to plug in numbers for most DS questions, here’s a case where you don’t really need to. In fact, plugging in might be counter-productive!
It’s helpful to think about what a question is really asking and to work from there.
In a case such as this one, I will separate out the two Statements for you:
Note that the right side of S1 will always be positive. Work from this standpoint. See? SUFFICIENT.
You can see that 0 and 1 work, but given what’s here, ALL PERFECT SQUARES actually work. That implies of course that some answers will be less than 3 and some will be greater than 3. INSUFFICIENT.
And… we’re done.
Notice how quickly a question like this can go as soon as we understand the concept properly. Watch the video for more details!
GMAT Data Sufficiency is fun!
Is the integer k greater than 3 ?
(1) The sum of -4 and k equals the square of an integer.
